The Ryan Budget

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Most Americans who recognize the name “Paul Ryan” do so because he was the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States a year-and-a-half ago.  He also happens to be the Chairman of the Budget Committee in the House of Representatives.  And in that capacity, he has offered a budget for the country, which will be up for a vote this week in the House.  I intend to vote for it, and I expect it to pass.

The Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Congressman Steve Israel of New York, said that the Ryan budget will be the “defining issue in the midterm elections.”  And it may well be (at least after Obamacare.)  A previous Ryan budget was the inspiration for a Democrat attack ad on T.V. showing a Paul Ryan look-alike actor pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair, up to, and over a cliff.  Subtle.

So what is in this Ryan budget that, among other things, allegedly pushes granny over a cliff?

Well, first of all, it’s official name is the 2015 Path to Prosperity.  And it sets out a blueprint for spending, not just over the next year, but over the next ten years.

Perhaps most importantly, the budget actually comes into balance.  That’s the good news.  The bad news, it doesn’t balance until the tenth year.

Of course that’s a lot better than the budget offered by President Obama, or any of the other Democrat budgets being voted on in the House this week.  Their budgets never balance – ever.

And over in the Senate, good old Harry Reid isn’t going to let the Democrat-controlled Senate vote on any budget.  Afterall, it’s an election year, and he wouldn’t want any of the Democrat Senators to have to cast a tough vote.

The Ryan budget starts to tackle Washington’s out-of-control spending ways, by cutting spending by $5.1 trillion over the ten years covered by the budget.  Another way of looking at it is that we’ll spend $43 trillion, rather than $48 trillion over the next decade.

In full disclosure, spending each year will actually go up over the previous year, but by less than it otherwise would have.  Spending will go up 3.5% each year, rather than by 5.2% each year under the current path.  So it’s really not a cut in spending from year to year.  It’s merely slowing the rate of growth.  Hardly draconian cuts worthy of being illustrated by a granny actress being pushed over a cliff.  (Doesn’t mean they won’t try it again.)

Among other significant items in the Ryan budget.  It repeals Obamacare.  It strengthens Medicare so it won’t go bankrupt as is currently projected if not reformed.  It converts Medicaid into block grants back to the states to allow less federal, and more state and local, control over a program rife with waste and fraud.  It does the same thing with Welfare.  It calls for expanded oil and natural gas production in the United States.  And it calls for a complete overhaul of our cumbersome and complicated income tax code.

By the way, if you think that we should balance the budget more quickly than in ten years, I agree with you.  That’s why I will also vote for the Republican Study Committee (RSC) budget.  This balances the budget in four years rather than ten.  Of course to accomplish this (without raising taxes) the “cuts” have to be deeper.  I’m willing to do this.  But some of my Republican colleagues (and all of my Democrat colleagues) are unwilling to do it, and therefore it won’t pass.  Neither will the Congressional Black Caucus budget, the Progressive Caucus budget, or Obama’s budget, all of which spend more money than the current path, and raise taxes to boot.

After all these budgets fail, the Ryan budget will be the only budget standing, and as I said, I intend to vote for it.  Most Republicans will too.  And all the Democrats will vote against it.

At least that’s what I expect.  And as always, I’m open to your input.  Please let me know what you think.

See you next week.

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